I just completed a replica of a 1957 Gibson Futura (Explorer Prototype) Here are some pictures of the completed, except for finish, guitar. If you are interested in seeing the whole thread here is a link to the MLP build thread - http://www.mylespaul.com/threads/57-futura-build.392989/ Cheers Peter.
This guy? Apparently he was spotted with this guitar on his front porch by the author of the photo. Kurt Linhof. Linhof is a famous guitar collector / procurer. The story goes that Kurt was driving around from guitar store to guitar store buying and trading guitars. He was a vintage guitar collector when vintage wasn't even vintage yet. He spotted this guy on his porch with this guitar on his way to a guitar shop and stopped and ended up purchasing the guitar. There were 4 - 6 made in 1957 - 58. I think 3 are still around today, which is quite astounding. I really do not know much about this particular guitar other than what google has to say about it and a very short conversation I had with someone quite knowledgeable a while back. It's a cool story though. There is another famous picture from the NAMM show in 1957, which is this one - This one is clearly a prototype non-functioning guitar as it has no control knobs or wiring channel. Notice the black asymmetrical triangle on the headstock that shows up in Ponty's as well. I can see why they changed the design quite a bit to the Explorer. There were some really tricky procedures required to create this design that would not survive a high production workflow. Cheers Peter.
